I can officially cross off another goal from my list! I returned from my big trip to Costa Rica last Sunday. I had zero expectations prior to my trip, and the one word that comes to mind after my vacation is, 'enchanted.' Jennie, Megan, Sara, Katie and I embarked on a week-long adventure, and adventure is certainly what we got! Even more so than prior to the trip, I appreciate my friends for allowing me to be myself, even at my most weird. And traveling with 4 other girls for 8 days is enough to make anyone a little extra nutty. Next to adventure, laughing was the most consistent aspect of our trip. If memories could truly be bottled, I'd need several six packs to contain the week's worth from Costa Rica.
Highlights include but are not limited to:
Day 1 - Sunday:
This day started with our first of many breakfasts at Copacabana. Our tipico Costa Rican breakfast consisted of beef, beans & rice in a tortilla, avocado, papas fritas, frutas, jugo de frutas y cafe con leche.
'Toby' the lizard did his holy business into the condo pool that day. Apparently, he did not like us drinking cocktails and having fun on his territory! This was also the moment we realized we were going to have many, many funny moments on this trip. Katie arrived in the afternoon & quickly realized the slap-happy madness in store for her.
Our first dinner was at a beach side restaurant called, Nibbana. This was also when we discovered that random cats & dogs populate almost all restaurants in Costa Rica (at least almost all the ones we visited!). The first dog and cat we met were, "Champoo" and "Manchas," respectively. We were told by one waiter that visitors bring their pets to the beach and then the unleashed pets wander off from their owners and eventually become residents of the restaurants.
Day 2 - Monday:
First beach day and first encounter with the "Pipas Pipas" man selling coconuts on the beach. This day was also our first of 9 million encounters with the locals selling ceramicas and other goods on the beach to which we constantly were forced to reply, "no gracias." Dinner was sushi at Koi followed by Lady's Night at Aqua Discoteque. Free drinks, dancing and hot surfer dudes?! Si, por favor!
Day 3 - Tuesday:
Today was our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants drive to see the Arenal Volcano right after a "quick" breakfast at Olga's. I put the word quick in quotation marks because it was right about this time when we realized no service would ever be quick in Costa Rica (Pura Vida, after all!). We rented an SUV, and with nothing but our backpacks and cameras in tow, we embarked on a 4.5 hour road trip.
Several signs along the drive made us giggle. One example was a sign that advertised, "Camping. Cabins. Bratwurst." Another read, "German Bakery - For the Fun!" And after seeing many signs for it, we made a stop at Cafe Macadamia where we enjoyed amazing views, fresh, organic lunch and the most amazing iced tea I've ever had, in addition to macadamias, of course. The roads were super curvy, steep and narrow and when the pavement ended, roads of seemingly endless gravel and dust began. Katie did an amazing job driving and navigating in a foreign country. We stopped for zip line info and made reservations for 7:30am the following morning. Our first hotel attempt failed, so we ended up at Linda Vista Mountain Lodge, which turned out to be incredibly breathtaking - and cheap! While in most ways staying at this lodge seemed like we were "roughing it" (i.e. no TV, no air conditioning), this place had the most amazing infinity edge pool I've ever seen (swim up bar, volcano view, sunset view!). Some of the best memories of the trip occurred in that infinity edge pool. In fact, that was the moment we realized our vacation was 'enchanted.'
At dinner, we watched lava run down the volcano from the lodge restaurant. The restaurant had floor-to-ceiling windows that slid open to a balcony, providing an even better view of the lava. All was dark (very dark, in fact, so as not to impede the lava view), quiet and serene during dinner until Ms. Photographer Katie tried to come back into the restaurant after taking lava photos. We were all about to enjoy our tipico dinner when we "heard" her run into the glass doors. "Is she ok? She seems dazed!" exclaimed patrons at another table while her bff's are laughing so hard they're crying and can't ask if she is ok! Poor Katie! She sure is a trooper though!
Later that evening we had a run in with a little lizard (that Sara frightened into crawling underneath someones door!) a "big-ass moth" and a "big-ass beetle" and continued laughing the rest of the night.
Day 4 - Wednesday:
Up and at em' for EXTREME zip lining with our guides, Rudolfo and Wiemar. We rode a gondola to the top and had to zip down 6 runs. The longest run was 600ft high, 1/2 mile long and we were going up to speeds of approximately 52mph. When it was all over, I paused to reflect on how ironic it was that something so terrifying could also be so liberating.
During the drive home, we stopped at Mamma Pacha's Art Shop to purchase some local art and then stopped at a church in Canaste decorated with in infinite amount of mosaic tiles. I fell a little bit more in love with Costa Rica during every small town stop...
Random outbursts of giggling about Katie's incident continued the whole day, as well as random patches of gravel roads during the drive back. We capped off the 2 day adventure with lunch at Lola's on the beach where a pig (Lola, perhaps?) ran amongst the diners.
Day 5 - Thursday:
Joe's for breakfast and then another beach day! Joe's is located right next to Witch's Rock Surf Camp, so not only was breakfast delicious, but the eye candy was too!
After the beach we decided to head back to Joe's for smoothies. Since Happy Hour and the sunset were quickly approaching, we decided to stay at Joe's -sweat, salt, sunscreen, suits, etc.- for the remainder of the evening for micheladas & nachos. Pura vida, indeed!
Day 6 - Friday:
Breakfast at Walter's then to the beach! Megan & Jennie took surfing lessons from Andres from Witch's Rock Surf Camp. It was so fun to watch them and they did such an amazing job! In the afternoon, a shuttle picked us up and took us to the Lazy Lizard catamaran boat for the evening. We drank Imperial beers & rum punch, snorkeled (well, some of us just enjoyed lazing on the boat), ate lunch and then watched the breathtaking sunset. Later that night, we headed back to Joe's for dinner, then off to Monkey Bar for amazing local salsa music and dancing.
Day 7 - Saturday:
Last day at the beach. Last day for pipas pipas. Last day for smoothies at Joe's. Jennie, Megan & I went souvenir shopping after the beach on what seemed like the hottest day of the week. Megan and I purchased cafe at Olga's (Well, it is Olga's from 6am to noon, then an entirely different establishment from noon until late night. Efficient, eh?). This pit stop is worth noting because it was so unimaginably hot in this place that we were just dripping with sweat. Megan said while we were waiting for the nice gentleman to retrieve our goods, "Well, Stephie, we'll always remember purchasing our Costa Rica coffee."
Dinner at Dragonfly that night. This was a very fancy restaurant in Tamarindo. Located in the middle of a wooded area, Dragonfly's ambiance consists of a concrete floor, wooden beams, a burlap roof, no walls and zero air conditioning. Hard to imagine, but this really was the fanciest and most expensive restaurant we went to in Tamarindo! And just as we were toasting to the end of a week of adventure, little did we know that another adventure was awaiting us. Right when we received our bill, the power went out! How are we supposed to pay if the credit card machine isn't working? More importantly, how are we supposed to see our way back to the condo?? .......So, what did we do? Well, we threw our collective colones onto the table and hiked up our long skirts to prepare for a muddy walk in the dark back to the condo. We used camera flashes to guide our way, and incidentally, got some pretty cool photos out of it! We made it back safely, but not before one of the security guards from a nearby condo complex decided to scare us half to death by making monkey noises. He saw (well, most likely 'heard') us, but we didn't see him! Packing by candlelight was no easy task, but it created even more laughs and made for yet another memorable experience to cap off our 'enchanted' vacation.
